Category: Stuff I Like

Not sure when it happened. It wasn’t love at first sight. I think it was gradual. But I’m slowly realizing that I’m a Google fanboi. It started with Search, then with a simple Gmail invite. Then Google Calendar, Reader. Now, lately Google Voice. And soon Google Wave. I don’t know how they do it, yet they manage to complicate my life in the most user friendly ways possible. Introducing applications I never knew I needed. And on top of that, claiming they’re not evil, even though we’re never quite sure what it is they do with all our data. Quite frankly, I almost don’t care because I’m so severely blinded by their awesomeness. They could be building an Orwellian empire, or secretly plotting elaborate extortion schemes based on my web searches. But being the fanboi my 12 step program finally lets me admit to, I’m certain my data is only used for good purposes. Like, solving world hunger or classes on performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitationon on kittens. Either way, we should all be thankful Google exists. Because they sure can’t stop, given that all those things I never really needed in the first place are now interwoven into the very fabric of my being.

Now, excuse me as I turn to the giant G on my wall and chant for a bit before going to bed.

I love getting myself worked up listening to conservative talk radio. It’s a form of entertainment I indulge in at times when in a car and without anything else interesting to listen to. In times like these I turn to Sean Hannity and Bill Cunningham to keep me company. In a way they’re very Orwellian in their style, sometimes reminiscent of the Two Minutes Hate from 1984, but stretched out for hours on end to fill the great demand.

Endless people call in patting themselves and the host on the back for being “Great Americans” and whatnot. They talk about how the president is going to take their guns away from them and why it’s a great idea to stockpile weapons. They talk about how the war in Iraq is going great and how we’re winning. And they talk about the economy and how there’s a left wing conspiracy to make us all communist. It’s all pretty entertaining and all that fear mongering is quite normal for this particular station.  They have a great line-up of talk show hosts that specialize in it after all. What caught my attention yesterday as I was listening was not that though, but one of their commercials.

Today we made Glögg for the first time. In all my years living in Sweden I have never actually made it myself, but since it’s not sold over here, and we ran out of our imported-by-parent-or-swedish-friend bottles of Blossa, the wife finally conviced me we need to make our own.

It turns out that it’s not that hard to make, and we’re pretty close to the final product and it tasts mighty good. Why haven’t we tried this before? Has easy access to store-bought Glögg killed our desire to experiment in the past? Probably.

In any case, I’m pretty happy about keeping the tradition alive….